This invention relates to a photographic processing system capable of processing, such as developing and printing, an exposed photographic film and making a print.
Recently in the most popular photographic processing system, a photographic film photographed through a camera by a customer is photographically processed at a photofinisher (a socalled laboratory) through a photo-dealer and the resulting developed photographic film and the prints thereof are returned to the customer through the dealer again. To be more concrete, the customer brings the photographed film with him to the dealer. Then, he orders the development and prints of the film from the dealer. The dealer fills in the contents of the order in a development/print envelope (or a DP envelope) and puts the film in the envelope. The laboratory man goes around his assigned district to collect DP envelopes. The collected envelopes are then classified at the laboratory by the kinds of photographic films and customers' orders. An ID seal (that is an identification seal) is pasted on each of the DP envelope and film to identify the customer that placed the order. The film is then processed by developing and printing it. The resulting developed photographic film, prints and DP envelope are verified against each other according to the ID seal and are then sent back to the dealer with the photographic finishing charge calculated out. The customer pays the charge at the dealer and receives the developed film and prints.
It has recently become very complicated for a laboratory to perform the above-mentioned work such as the classification of kinds of films, the work for pasting ID seals on and the verification work, because the kinds of photographic films have been diversified, the conditions where customers photographed and exposed have been varied and customers' orders have also been variegated. The above-mentioned complicated works have raised such a problem that an erroneous photographic processing is caused, that a returning of an article to a customer is delayed, that labor is in short supply and that an operation cost is increased.
In recent years, on the other hand, a camera has greatly been improved to contribute to making a photographic opportunity wider. However, the photographing intention of a photographer who is a customer has not satisfactorily been reflected, so that a photographer has complained about the color, brightness and finished prints each being different from those intended by the photographer.
A photographic processing charge has been calculated out in a system such that the charge is calculated out after completing all the photographic process. The system has therefore been inattentive to a customer, because the customer has not been told the charge in advance and does not know the charge until he actually receives his finished film and prints.
A developed photographic film returned to a customer has been cut into every several picture-frames and put in a so-called negative film case. When the film is reprinted at a laboratory, it has been forced to work so complicatedly that the film pieces cut into every several picture-frames are spliced again to each other pieces and each picture-frame is then reprinted.
Further, when a customer requests a reprinting service, it is difficult and in inconvenient to find a subject picture-frame out of the negative film frames capable of hardly verifying the subject picture-frame, because the color and light-and-shade thereof are reversed.